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MOCHI

By Mayumi KOMATSU

COLORBIRD INC. - as SALES All rights, World

Drama - Completed 2018

In an era when various traditions and memories across Japan are fading, there are those individuals who protect these, and strive to keep them alive. The symbol of this film is mochi, nestling up to the important scenes of everyday life.

- Year of production
- 2018
- Genres
- Drama, Art - Culture
- Countries
- JAPAN
- Languages
- JAPANESE
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 61 mn
- Director(s)
- Mayumi KOMATSU
- Cast
- Yuna SATO, Jin YOMOGIDA, Shiho SATO, Shun SASAKI, Ikuo HATAKEYAMA
- Synopsis
- Yuna, a 15-year old third-year middle school student lives in Honedera, Ichinoseki City in Iwate Prefecture, which miraculously appears almost as it did during the Middle Ages. At the funeral for Yuna's grandma, her grandpa insists that he wants to make mochi in the traditional method, using a wooden mallet and mortar. Her family attempts to persuade him, saying that similarly delicious mochi can be made without all that trouble using machine, but grandpa is insistent on doing it the old-fashioned way. Adolescent Yuna is very sensitive to the atmosphere of her situation. because the middle school which she attends will merge with the local middle school, her school will be shut down at the end of the year. At her school students are carefully taught about the area's traditions such as Mochi Honzen and Kaguya no Torimai, so that these traditions may be kept alive within them. Through the act of making mochi, Yuna slowly becomes aware of traditions, memories, and thoughts that will fade away if nothing is done. Over the course of the summer until her graduation in march, with the passing of her grandma, the loss of her school, her best friend moving away, the older student she has feeling for leaving the city, while also being protected by the mochi which looks over important times, Yuna begins to change so that she will not forget.